Would you run a marathon without training?

Would you run a marathon without training?

You wouldn’t run a 26-mile foot race without putting in some hard yards of training. It’s the same when you run for promotion.

Running a marathon and running for promotion. At first glance, they might not seem similar. But the two activities have one key thing in common. The need to prepare.

Too many officers applying for Sergeant and Inspector roles are guilty of being not quite savvy enough about what they face. Many are happy to fly by the seat of their pants. After all, it’s what cops do every day of their working lives, so why not at interview?

Match-fit

Seven, or even five, years ago, that approach might have been enough. But not today. In a world of assessment tests, presentation exercises and interview boards, you need to be fully match-fit. You need to have started your training long before the race.

Left to your own devices, you’ll probably opt for that seat-of-the-pants approach. So
how much better would it be to be coached through the process by an expert? That’s
me, Steve Cooper, formerly a detective Inspector and now a qualified coach.

Investment

At Rank Success, I’ve deconstructed the process and put it back together in a meaningful way. So you don’t have to. For a very moderate investment, you can download my digital guides, attend my workshops or be individually coached to promotion. Or you can show up on the day and hope for the best. It’s your call.

Police Hour has hit over 2 million readers a week every week for over six months

Police Hour has grown from a small startup to something that really means something. We’d just really like to take a moment to thank you and let you know what has been happening behind the screens on the amazing journey you’ve supported us down.

Back in May we secretly established office space in Hartlepool and spent more time focusing on Police Hour, and since may our weekly readers have never dropped below 2.2 million unique readers, That is all thanks to you for staying with us or joining us.

We’ve been building our servers and increasing the speed in which you can access our site, we silently launched a new look website and focused on technology and working closely with Facebook, Twitter & Google to establish some connections and contacts. Along the way, we have met some fantastic people who offered us some great advice.

Our aim back in 2014 was to provide balanced non-sensationalised policing news that was reported in a positive way for Police Officers nearly four years later we have outgrown our original aim, with many members of the community who support our front line police officers jumping in a supporting us.

We don’t share fake news and we ensure we do not publish in a way to encourage shares, clicks or clickbait and ensure we still provide a voice for front-line police officers, but due to our expanding demand and rapid growth have gone beyond these areas to offer content for those of you out there who are not police officers.

Over the past 12 months, We’ve been to many award ceremonies and even spoken at conferences about Police Hour something we did not think would ever happen.

The support we also get from the policing community is also amazing and we cannot thank all of these individual officers enough not only for the hard and challenging job they are doing but the warmth in the way they have welcomed police hour in to their hearts, We see the real side of policing the side that many do not get to see and we can promise you they are working non stop around the clock to make a difference for you and not for their own gain.

Supporting the thin blue line

In the last six months alone we have together raised 20K for the families and officers injuries in major incidents in the line of duty, We have all stood up together shoulder to shoulder and supported these families, offering them some fantastic support.

This money has helped police officers get home and paid for rehabilitation to get them back to work, we are ever so proud of this and can only thank our readers for digging deep and supporting the thin blue line.

Keeping content free

As many news outlets within the policing world look to charge monthly and yearly subscriptions we’ll simply be keeping our content free and won’t be charging you or restricting our content, Although a lot of time and money is spent behind the scenes bringing our news to your screens we believe content should be free and you should not be faced with a paywall.

We’ll be ensuring that Police Hour will remain free, and it always will be.

What we are offering Police Officers.

We’re really getting behind and supporting those of you out there who want to become police officers, and for the first time Police Hour will be offering all of you out there who aspire to become police officers free content and tools that we believe will help you pass the police recruitment process and stand you in good stead for the future.

We will start releasing further details about this in March when we hope everything will be ready to go.

Police Promotion

We’ve established some fantastic networking opportunities that enable us to support the front line in terms of police promotion, we now have a Steve Cooper on hand to offer you free promotion content that we believe will invest in your future or the way you think and approach things.

Developing digital content

Police Hour has invested thousands of pounds in technology that will enable us to release professionally produced video content, although we cannot say much about this at the moment we have been out and about filming in Hartlepool and other areas of Teesside.

News and content

We believe that our news and content should remain fresh and remain supportive of the thin blue line, we believe it is so important to continue sharing missing people appeals of many which never reach the local media or national media.

We believe we should only produce content that we believe you will read, that we believe will add value.

We want to share news and write news that matters to you and your community. There is many more things happening behind the scenes that we can’t tell you about just yet but we do look forward in sharing them.

Simply to you and our 2.2 Million readers we’d simply love to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Announcing exclusive partnership with Rank Success and offering you our readers free police promotion material to get you passed

We are delighted to announce an exclusive partnership with Steve Cooper of Rank Success further showing our support to the thin blue line and offering you content that will invest in you and your skills.

This one is just for those with aspirations to be Police Sergeant or Police Inspectors, We will offer you exclusive content that will be released each month throughout 2018.

This content will be FREE and released via our website, this content could be just what you need to get that police promotion, The content we will be offering will be enough to get you passed if you put the right preparation and revision in.

This content is a first of it’s kind of the ‘expensive’ world of police promotion and will be ideal content for aspiring promotion candidates!

In the exclusive partnership, Police Hour has teamed up with coach and mentor Steve Cooper of Rank Success to offer you FREE top tips that could get you passed the police recruitment process aiming for the rank of Sergeant or Inspector.

Why are we announcing this partnership?

For a while now Police Hour has interested in offering our readers who aspire to police promotion some free content that could just get them passed that process, We know that despite not many of our readers will want police promotion at the moment or be interested in this kind of content but we want to be able to offer our readers who do want more and do aspire to be the best they can be to be some free content that we believe here at Police Hour will help them achieve that new role of Sergeant or Inspector.

So we have been watching Steve’s approach and we think it is quite a ‘niche’ area of coaching and mentoring. On his testimonials page, you can see a growing body of successful officers describing in their own words how valuable this kind of support is.

We also believe we should be supporting independent businesses out there within the policing world just like ourselves.

Did you say FREE Stuff?

Yes, you heard that right, The content Steve will be providing Police Hour would usually be a paid service and we have managed to secure that content free for you which will be released over a number of blogs within 2018.

By releasing this content we are hoping to seek your views and begin informed debates around the topic of promotion an area which can get a bit lively so we are told

Steve told us: “Confidentiality is a basic principle of coaching. It’s something highly valued by my clients. I find it supports honest conversations to help individuals in becoming more promotable”.

With a growing community of police officers and wider policing family connecting with Police Hour on social media, we aim to be the most trusted news organisation offering exclusive content.”

Trevor Sherwood Editor of Police Hour “This has never been done before as far as we are aware and we are purely providing this content to our readers who are struggling with the process, who need a little bit of help kick-start the process for them and gain an insight of the basic things that could prevent promotion that you’d never consider”

“Within 2017 we have worked with Steve already on a number of blogs, in 2018 we are really going to turn things up a notch and offer you our readers the best chance at Police Promotion without having to pay a penny”.

Comments

Leadership Grounded in Service Delivery by Steve Cooper

We have teamed up with Steve Cooper Police Promotion coach to bring you free tools and resources to help with your Police Promotion prep, Steve Cooper is one of the leading police promotion coaches in the United Kingdom.

Thanks to Steve and his company Rank Success is able to offer Police Hour readers free promotion tools that other coaches would charge you for, thanks to our great relation with Steve we are able to offer you this advice, information and valuable police promotion information and advice absolutely free of charge for the Police Hour readers looking for Police Promotion.

The focus of this exclusive editorial feature written by Steve Cooper is the ‘7 Things interview boards also look for in promotion candidates’ is knowledge of the policing environment you aspire to lead in. Here are the 7 key traits which police promotion boards inherently value:

“Know what it is you are trying to accomplish and ensure others involved know the same.” – Patrick D. McGowan

All Bound for Mu Mu Land…

Leadership and Service Delivery are concepts featuring in all UK police promotion frameworks; the Competency and Values Framework (CVF), Police Promotion Framework (PPF) and the Metropolitan Leadership Framework (MLF). You can read a summary of CVF/PPF/MLF here, where you will learn they are not to be confused with the ‘Justified Ancients of Mu Mu Framework’ (KLF). I digress… These frameworks are key expectations of both Sergeant and Inspector roles.

The promotion board will of course have a marking guide and six or so questions for you, based on the rank competencies. Adhering to the relevant competencies of the rank you aspire to in your verbal responses is a good strategy. This is almost always based on a sound understanding of your force promotion framework and aligning your own evidence to it.

So when it comes to service delivery, what indicators could a promotion panel consider when deciding whether to promote YOU instead of ‘A. N. Other’ candidate they may interview? This blog will take you through some of the human considerations of these supposedly ‘objective’ competencies.

Focus on Delivery

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James

A ‘focus on delivery’ (internally and externally) is one indicator of potential. In raising your awareness around this, it may be helpful as part of your wider preparation to think through and ask yourself the following questions:

Are you someone who consistently sees things through to completion, delivering against challenging deadlines?

Do you go above and beyond what is expected to get the job done?

Do you take opportunities?

Do you step out of your comfort zone to try new ways of doing things?

I suspect the answer to all of these is a resounding yes. In the interests of preparing yourself ahead of a promotion opportunity however, you might want to delve a little deeper by asking yourself these further structured questions against the ones outlined above:

When did I do this? (CONTEXT)

What did I do? (SPECIFICS)

How did I do it? (ALIGNED TO COMPETENCIES)

Say to yourself “So what?” (RESULT / OUTCOME)

Spending some time reflecting like this can help you think through and develop some considered responses. You will be delivering these responses, to help the board see and hear that you are a candidate who considers and understands wider aspects. Someone who understands the role.

The Role

“When we all play our part the world will run as designed. Do your part, do it now!” – Temitope Ibrahim

What do you know about the role of Sergeant/Inspector? Everything or nothing? In truth it’s likely to be somewhere in between. Clearly, the more you know and understand about it the better. But both the Sergeant and Inspector role have expectations and responsibilities around managing resources, e.g. time, money, people and equipment linked to how service is delivered or provided.

Ask yourself – When have I managed resources to deliver, improve or recover service?

What did you do? How did you do it? Then say to yourself “So what?”

That might sound a little blunt, but it’s a good way of holding yourself accountable in formulating your evidence; it’s of limited use offering examples without a result or outcome. By limited use of course, I mean scoring 2 or 3 rather than 4 or 5 (out of 5). Remember that ‘good, better, BEST‘ mantra??

Service Delivery – Internal

“Within the context of reducing budgets and changing demand, the police service can continue to provide service but it will have to be delivered in different ways. We are determined to be as innovative as possible in meeting these challenges.” – From Reshaping Policing for the Public.

It is the Sergeant who, based on job knowledge and experience, directs the daily work of their team. With this in mind, what is your responsibility to deliver service internally? You’ll be expected to impart shared values, standards and culture to those under your supervision and as an aspiring promotion candidate, you’ll have a good idea of the kind of working environment you want to foster for your team. One in which people feel supported and where they are free to innovate, thrive and excel. Why is this important?

To ascertain your focus around this, the board might want to hear about your leadership and how you will set, communicate and reinforce standards to ensure service delivery and promote ethical behaviour.

Service Delivery – External

“The police service is under unprecedented pressure, having to deal simultaneously with financial austerity and changing patterns of crime. The police need to better understand the changing nature of demand on their services.” – Rick Muir

The effective investigation of crime, alleviating anti-social behaviour in communities and keeping the public informed all drive and maintain public confidence.

As an Inspector your role will include delivering and implementing plans in addition to allocating and monitoring the quality and progress of work relating to these and other aspects of service delivery.

So what do you know about wider challenges the service faces, particularly relating to understanding and/or managing demand?

What is your force doing well at the moment?

What is not being done so well? Why?

How can things be done more effectively and/or efficiently?

What will you do as a new Inspector to help the organisation move forward?

Addressing some or all of the above points and questions will help to elevate your awareness and increase your focus around service delivery. The name of the game.